William Nevill, 16th Baron Bergavenny (also Abergavenny; c. 1698 – 21 September 1744), was an English peer and courtier who held positions in the Royal Household and built a country mansion in Sussex.
[1] Born about 1698, he was the only son of Edward Nevill (1664 – 1701), a Captain in the Royal Navy, who died aboard HMS Lincoln off the coast of Virginia, and his wife Hannah Thorpe (1668 – 1764), daughter of Gervase Thorpe (died 1716),[1] who lived at Brockhurst,[2] near East Grinstead.
On the death without children of his first cousin Edward Nevill, 15th Baron Bergavenny, he succeeded to the barony, taking his seat in the House of Lords on 12 November 1724.
Deciding to leave the ancient family house at Birling in Kent, he sold inherited lands and applied the proceeds to buy a block of farmland in Forest Row, where he created a park and built in it the mansion of Kidbrooke Park,[1][3] since altered into Michael Hall School.
He died in Bath on 21 September 1744 and was buried at East Grinstead, being succeeded in the barony by his eldest son.